Derby beefs up police patrols on Greenway and downtown

Published 6:23 pm, Monday, August 31, 2009

DERBY -- Supernumerary police officers will once again be on the beat after the Board of Aldermen Thursday voted to restore seven positions.

"I asked the chief to come up with a program the Police Department can adhere to," Mayor Anthony Staffieri said. "I think it's a great idea for an added presence where we could use some additional coverage."

Last November the aldermen voted to lay off its supernumerary officers on the recommendation of the Board of Police Commissioners. At that time Police Chief Gene Mascolo said some of the nine officers hadn't worked enough to justify the cost of the program and that changes in the way full-time officers were scheduled eliminated the need for the supers.

But earlier this year Staffieri asked him to investigate ways to add more patrols to the Derby Greenway and downtown area, Mascolo said.

"He asked us to work with the union and the tax board to see if we could come up with a way to use the recently laid off supers to meet this goal," Mascolo said. "Under this guidance, the city was able to negotiate a new super program where the department would use supers to augment full-time patrols in target areas of town."

Years ago, supernumeraries were responsible for police coverage 24/7, Mascolo said, but that evolved over the years to a department that now relies a full-time force. Initially full-time officers worked Monday through Friday, he said, with supers covering weekend shifts, holidays and vacations.

Eventually, full-time officers filled all but a few weekend shifts, Mascolo said. "This transition occurred due to the city's desire for full-time supervision of supers on weekends, contractual issues with the union and the reduced availability of supers," he said.

But when the state began requiring supers to be certified, it became nearly impossible to find and keep them, Mascolo said. "The training requirement was extensive, and once the part-time officers were trained and certified, they became attractive to other departments who were seeking certified officers to become full-time cops," he said. The department trained about 30 officers who ended up leaving for other departments, he said.

That led to full-time officers filling all shifts, he said.

Then the last police contract changed the officer's schedules from a Monday through Friday schedule to a staggered four days on/two days off schedule, which eliminated the need for supers, Mascolo said.

The seven positions the aldermen approved Thursday won't be used to fill shifts that full-time officers normally work, he said, but will instead "augment and reinforce patrols," Mascolo said.